1. Field of The Invention
The invention relates to a new process for the continuous vaporization of volatile active compounds, in particular perfume oils, and to a device for carrying out the process.
1. Description of Related Art
Various processes for the continuous vaporization of volatile active compounds, for example perfume oils, are already known. These processes known at the present time are based on attempting to achieve the most uniform release possible of the active compounds to the ambient air either by increasing the surface or by raising the temperature of the substances to be vaporized. In order to increase their surface, the active compounds have been applied, for example, to carriers, such as filter paper, nonwovens, foamed sheets of plastic or powders composed of inorganic materials, for example gypsum powder, or have been incorporated into carriers such as gelatine, crosslinked celluloses, waxes, polyvinyl chloride or ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymers (see, for example, U.S. Patent Specification Nos. 2,927,055 and 3,945,950; and German Offenlegungsschriften Nos. (German Published Specifications) 2,454,969, 2,521,265 and 2,606,544). Increasing the temperature has been effected by supplying heat to the storage vessels containing the active compounds to be vaporized.
These known processes have, however, the serious disadvantage that, even if the individual components of the process are carefully matched, for example the carrier to the active compounds to be vaporized, vaporization does not proceed at a linear rate, at least over prolonged periods of time, but the amount of active compound released to the surroundings per time unit during the varporization operation varies and--in the case of mixtures of substances to be vaporized--the composition of the gaseous mixture of substances also varies. In addition, quantitative vaporization of the active compounds to be vaporized is not achieved in practice, but vaporization residues are formed, and these can amount to up to 15% by weight of the amount of active compound to be vaporized.
Since, in practice, both a constant release of substance and a constant composition of the mixtures of substances to be vaporized are required for deodorizing the air in a room and for disinfecting the room and the like, the object was, therefore, to find a process by means of which linear vaporization of the active compound$ and mixtures of active compounds to be vaporized is obtained.